In state and central governments, there is a widespread perception that it is the rural areas that are in the greatest need of government assistance. By the same token, it is assumed that the educational problems are more urgent in rural areas. In this understanding, the taluka town is willy-nilly classified as urban, and little attention is given to the fact that as far as government-run primary education goes, the town is worse off than the village (and undoubtedly than the large city). In order to discuss this further, I will narrate a couple of stories. These go back to the very beginning of our work, before we had started Kamala Nimbkar Balbhavan or developed our approach to teaching early literacy.